Transcript – Using QuickStats

In this tutorial, you’ll discover what QuickStats are and how to use them.

The easiest way to access QuickStats is by navigating to the ABS Census webpage where you’ll find a QuickStats search field.

Further search options are available via the QuickStats splash page. Here, you can search for QuickStats from previous Censuses and also access the advanced search feature. This allows you to view your geographical searches on a map as well as conduct searches based on addresses and various geographical definitions.

To demonstrate searching for a QuickStat let’s return to the QuickStats splash page. First, choose a Census year, and then begin typing in a location or area of interest. In this case, let’s type Newcastle.

You can see that as soon as we type 3 or more letters, we’re presented with a list, and that this list continually refines itself for every subsequent letter that we type.

The search results yielded include various different geographically defined areas including a Commonwealth Electoral Division, State Electoral Division, Indigenous Area, and a host of others.

In this example, let’s choose the State Suburb of Newcastle.

Now click Go.

Upon arriving at the State Suburb of Newcastle’s QuickStat page, we’re presented with a quick summary of People, Families, and Dwelling characteristics as well as a map outlining the exact area of the region that we’ve just selected.

Underneath, there are four expandable sections that allow us to view specific statistics relevant to People, Families, Dwellings and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Once you expand a section you can jump to further subcategories by clicking on the appropriate links.

By hovering the mouse over relevant Census classifications you’ll be provided with pop up details on the statistics you’re looking at.

If you’d like a more in depth description you can click to access the Census Dictionary.

Alongside statistics for your chosen area, comparison figures are also provided for the relevant state as well as for the whole of Australia.

Selected tables also feature charts which you can access by clicking the appropriate buttons. Specific details of the chart are viewable by simply hovering the mouse over relevant areas.

Returning once more to the QuickStats splash page, let’s now choose the Advanced search feature. Here, we can search by text, address, or the full geographic structure by hierarchy to find an area of interest.

We can also select specific geographic boundaries to overlay on the map in order to go about making our selection.

To illustrate, let’s choose an SA2 level overlay, an SA4 level overlay, and a GCCSA overlay.

The scroll on your mouse (or the scroll bar to the side of the map) affects zoom, while clicking and holding allows you to pan across the map.

Let’s return to an SA2 overlay.

You can make selections by clicking within an area, with these selections affecting zoom.

Let’s now have a quick look at the address search.

You can see that once you enter an address and click Go, you’ll be presented with a list of geographical regions where that specific address can be found.

Clicking these geographies will select them for you on the map.

A Geographies Search on the other hand allows you to quickly select a specific geography that you’re after by following the various classification hierarchies.

Let’s choose the Tamworth SA2 region again.

Once you’ve found the area that you’re after you can then click on the QuickStats link at the bottom of the page to again be presented with the relevant QuickStats.

The QuickStats page also provides a link to the Community Profile Census product which provides data for the same geographically defined regions in various Microsoft Excel workbooks.

You can learn more about Community Profiles by expanding the Data & Analysis side menu and selecting Community Profiles.

For further information about the various Geographical definitions that the ABS makes use of, the geography fact sheets are a great reference.

You can access them by expanding the Data Quality side menu, selecting Fact Sheets, and then clicking on Geography.

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